Quick-cash company seeks to overturn Gallatin Road zoning district

UPDATE, 4:08 p.m.: Metro Councilman Erik Cole, who represents District 7 in East Nashville, said the complaint by Tennessee Quick Cash Inc. was off base.

“It’s pretty clear to most folks in the real world that there’s a big difference between their company and a bank,” he said.

UPDATE, 2:57 p.m.: Doug Sloan, a Metro attorney, said the city has not yet responded to the legal arguments made by Tennessee Quick Cash Inc. He said a partial ruling in a similar case involving the 12th Avenue South neighborhood said the specific plan district is an appropriate zoning tool for the city to use. Tennessee Quick Cash argues that Metro can’t create such districts because the state hasn’t given it the power to do so.

ORIGINAL POST: A business on Gallatin Pike in East Nashville has sued to overturn Metro’s zoning plan for the thoroughfare.

Conoly Brown, David Hood and Tennessee Quick Cash Inc. sued the city on June 28 in an attempt to void the Specific Plan District for the road, arguing that it unlawfully prevents the company from setting up a title loan operation there. Tennessee Quick Cash is at 3100 Gallatin Pike.

Approved in 2007, the zoning law tries to control development on the road by prohibiting future uses such as title loan, payday loan and quick-cash businesses, as well as pawn shops. Existing examples of those uses were grandfathered in.

“There is no meaningful distinction between the operation of a bank, which is allowed in the District as a financial institution use, and Plaintiffs’ current business operations of check cashing and cash advances and his intended business of title loans,” according to the suit filed by Nashville attorney Peter H. Curry. “The only distinction that appears from these ordinances is their sponsors’ ‘perception’ that customers of the latter type businesses are ‘less desirable’ than bank customers and should therefore not be provided these financial services in their neighborhood.”

Councilman Jamie Hollin, who took office last year, introduced legislation three months ago that would revoke the zoning plan within his District 5. Three weeks before the lawsuit was filed, Hollin said in a news release that the plan was “prohibiting economic growth and development.”